Cleo

Let's talk about how the film presents Cleo as an object in a way that mirrors (to use a word that also has literal meaning in this instance) the way she sees herself and others see her. We can all see how this film does this. Let's point out such in class. That is, stay focused not solely on the story elements but on the filmic aspects as well.

Breathless

As we will discuss this week, the FNW folks wanted a cinema that departed dramatically from that offered by dominant French cinema. As the Neupert chapter makes clear, these filmmakers hoped to dismantle the industry by producing films that were profoundly self-aware (in opposition to the bourgeois studio cinema that masked its craft and pretended to be up-to-date but was actually stifled in tired retreads).

Breathless achieves this aim in a recognizable fashion. Through its elliptical editing (jump-cuts), asynchronous sound, non-standard narrative grammar, and partially developed characters who often act against themselves, the film presents almost every major tenet the FNW wanted to forward. Though its stylistics (issues of editing, cinematography, etc) are often frustrating to audiences at first glance ("this dude makes crappy films"), further study finds that comment like this actually says more about the speaker's subject position than it does about the film. That is, we have been trained through repetition to "know" what a (good) film should look like (fluid, eg) and what it should contain (recognizable characters engaged in the world in manners consistent with their character traits, eg). Though some of the stylistics may look familiar in some way (elliptical editing is not that rare today), we cannot underestimate the radicality of this film in 1959.

The Breathless Bummer

Egads. I hope I didn't use foul words yesterday in my frustrations for the screening room mess. Regardless, I *think* we got the problem fixed. Well, we can hope so.

Try to watch the film on your own. Our library has a copy, Netflix has it streaming, you can get it at good rental stores, and it is probably findable online somewhere (any suggestions?). It is foundational to the FNW and is referenced in MANY upper-level film courses.

In the next day or so, I will write an entry here (about the film) that should serve as an example of those we should all submit.